Tajikistan

Government Structure

Independent Tajikistan's initial government conformed to the
traditional Soviet formula of parliamentary-ministerial governance and
complete obeisance to the regime in Moscow. The office of president of the
republic was established in 1990, following the example set by the central
government in Moscow. Until the establishment of the short-lived coalition
government in 1992, virtually all government positions were held by
communist party members. After December 1992, power was in the hands of
factions opposed to reform. Former allies in that camp then contended
among themselves for power.

The 1994 Constitution

In 1994 Tajikistan adopted a new constitution that restored the office
of president, transformed the Soviet-era Supreme Soviet into the Supreme
Assembly (Majlisi Oli), recognized civil liberties and property rights,
and provided for a judiciary that was not fully independent. Like
constitutions of the Soviet era, the document did not necessarily
constrain the actual exercise of power. For example, the mechanism by
which the constitution was formally adopted was a referendum held in
November 1994. Balloting occurred simultaneously with the vote for
president, even though that office could not legally exist until and
unless the constitution was ratified.

The Executive

The president was first chosen by legislative election in 1990. In the
first direct presidential election, held in 1991, former communist party
chief Rahmon Nabiyev won in a rigged vote. The office of president was
abolished in November 1992, then reestablished de facto in 1994 in advance
of the constitutional referendum that legally approved it. In the interim,
the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Imomali Rahmonov, was nominal chief of
state. In the presidential election of November 1994, Rahmonov won a vote
that was condemned by opposition parties and Western observers as
fraudulent. Rahmonov's only opponent was the antireformist Abdumalik
Abdullojanov, who had founded an opposition party after being forced to
resign as Rahmonov's prime minister in 1993 under criticism for the
country's poor economic situation.

The Council of Ministers is responsible for management of government
activities in accordance with laws and decrees of the Supreme Assembly and
decrees of the president. The president appoints the prime minister and
the other council members, with the nominal approval of the Supreme
Assembly. In 1996 the Council of Ministers included fifteen full
ministers, plus six deputy prime ministers, the chairmen of five state
committees, the presidential adviser on national economic affairs, the
secretary of the National Security Council, and the chairman of the
National Bank of Tajikistan.

The Legislature

The republic's legislature, the Supreme Assembly, is elected directly
for a term of five years. According to the 1994 constitution, any citizen
at least twenty-five years of age is eligible for election. The
unicameral, 230-seat Supreme Soviet elected in 1990 included 227
communists and three members from other parties. The constitution approved
in November 1994 called for a unicameral, 181-seat parliament to replace
the Supreme Soviet. In the first election under those guidelines, 161
deputies were chosen in February 1995 and nineteen of the remaining twenty
in a second round one month later. (One constituency elected no deputy,
and one elected deputy died shortly after the election.) In the 1995
parliamentary election, an estimated forty seats were uncontested, and
many candidates reportedly were former Soviet regional and local
officials. The sixty communist deputies who were elected gave Rahmonov
solid support in the legislative branch because the majority of deputies
had no declared party affiliation. Like the 1994 presidential election,
the parliamentary election was not considered free or fair by
international authorities.

The Judiciary

The 1994 constitution prescribes an independent judiciary, including at
the national level the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court
(theoretically, the final arbiter of the constitutionality of government
laws and actions), the Supreme Economic Court, and the Military Court. The
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province has a regional court, and subordinate
courts exist at the regional, district, and municipal levels. Judges are
appointed to five-year terms, but theoretically they are subordinate only
to the constitution and are beyond interference from elected officials.
However, the president retains the power to dismiss judges, and in
practice Tajikistan still lacked an independent judiciary after the
adoption of the 1994 constitution. In June 1993, the Supreme Court acted
on behalf of the Rahmonov regime in banning all four opposition parties
and all organizations connected with the 1992 coalition government. The
ban was rationalized on the basis of an accusation of the parties'
complicity in attempting a violent overthrow of the government.

As in the Soviet system, the Office of the Procurator General has
authority for both investigation and adjudication of crimes within its
broad constitutional mandate to ensure compliance with the laws of the
republic. Elected to a five-year term, the procurator general of
Tajikistan is the superior of similar officials in lower-level
jurisdictions throughout the country.

Local Government

Below the republic level, provinces, districts, and cities have their
own elected assemblies. In those jurisdictions, the chief executive is the
chairman of a council of people's deputies, whose members are elected to
five-year terms. The chairman is appointed by the president of the
republic. The Supreme Assembly may dissolve local councils if they fail to
uphold the law. For most of the late Soviet and early independence
periods, Tajikistan had four provinces: Leninobod in the north,
Qurghonteppa and Kulob in the south, and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous
Province in the southeast. The precise status of that region is unclear
because separatists have declared it an autonomous republic and even the
government does not always call it a province (see fig. 10). Beginning in
1988, Qurghonteppa and Kulob were merged into a single province, called
Khatlon. (The two parts were separated again between 1990 and 1992.) A
large region stretching from the west-central border through Dushanbe to
the north-central border is under direct federal control.